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Preparation for Kindergarten & First Grade in a classical setting 

Kindergarten

Reading

  • Read classic literature to them daily, especially fairytales, fables, legends, and tall tales.

  • Talk about the stories. Talk about the unfamiliar words, the characters, and how the characters behave/their actions. Connect the characters’ actions to a CCA virtue (integrity, responsibility, self-government, respect, courage, perseverance, and humility). For example: How did the knight act with courage? How did the mouse persevere, or keep going when...? 

  • Speak words to them and ask them the sounds they hear. Children often lack phonemic awareness when entering kindergarten. This is the beginning of reading.

  • Play speaking games with rhyming words and opposite words. Encourage your child to hear sounds and make sounds. This should be done orally, through speaking.

 

Math

  • Make up simple oral word problems for them to think about and answer orally.

  • For example: Children are playing outside on a playground. Two of the children are playing on a swing-set and two of the children are playing on the monkey bars. How many children are there altogether playing on the playground?

 

Fine Motor Skills

  • Practice tucking in shirts.

  • Teach them to tie their shoes.

  • Teach them to buckle a belt.

 

Gross Motor Skills

  • Have them run, jump, climb, and play outside every day. 

First Grade

Reading

  • Read classic literature to them daily, especially fairytales, fables, legends, and tall tales. 

    Below is a list of stories that children in kindergarten would have read. For first graders who have yet to attend a classical academy, this list is a good starting point:

    Three Billy Goats Gruff
    Goldilocks and the Three Bears
    The Three Little Pigs
    The Wolf and the Kids
    Little Red Riding Hood
    The Velveteen Rabbit
    Snow White
    Cinderella
    Momotaro
    The Bremen Town Musicians
    Little Red Hen
    Chicken Little
    Ugly Duckling
    Johnny Appleseed
    Winnie the Pooh
    Aesop’s Fables
    The Legend of Jumping Mouse
    How Many Spots
    Casey Jones
     

  • Talk about the stories. Talk about the unfamiliar/big words, the characters, and how the characters behave. Connect the characters’ actions to a CCA virtue (integrity, responsibility, self-government, respect, courage, perseverance, and humility). For example: How did the knight act with courage? How did the mouse persevere, or keep going when...? How did President Washington show responsibility?

 

Math

Practice math facts for addition and subtraction 1-10. They should know these fluently.

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Motor Skills/Brain Development

Have them run, jump, climb, and play outside every day.

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* Be sure they can tuck their shirt in by themselves, fasten their belts and tie their shoes.

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